Athletes often spend countless hours training in order to improve their skill level so that they can become more competitive in sporting events, such as basketball games. In an effort to assist athletes in improving their skill level, systems have been developed that track an athlete's performance while training or playing a game and then provide feedback indicative of the performance. Such feedback can then be evaluated for helping the athlete to improve his skill level. As an example, commonly-assigned U.S. Pat. No. 7,094,164 describes a system that tracks the trajectory of a basketball during a basketball shot so that the shooter can use feedback from the system for the purpose of improving his/her skill at shooting basketballs.
In addition to improving shot trajectory when shooting a basketball, a shooter may also want to improve the “aiming” of the shot, i.e., the placement of the ball with respect to the basketball hoop. Ideally, the shooter will want to place each shot within a “make zone” of the basketball hoop. The “make zone” of the basketball hoop is a target area within the basketball hoop. A trajectory that results in the center of the basketball passing through the “make zone” results in a made shot, i.e., the ball passes through the hoop. In some cases, the “make zone” may be defined to be a relatively small area within the hoop such that it is possible to make the shot without the center of the ball passing through the “make zone.” The shooter may need to make lateral adjustments (e.g., left or right adjustments) and/or depth adjustment (e.g., front or rear adjustments) to his/her shot placement in order to better place the ball within the “make zone” and increase the number of made shots.
Tracking the placement of the ball at the basketball hoop when a shot is taken can present various challenges that may limit the effectiveness of a system that attempts to assess shooting performance. As an example, many basketball shots are often at a non-orthogonal angle to the backboard (and corresponding basketball hoop) as a result of the shooter being located on one side of the court or the other. The taking of shots at different angles often results in a variety of different shot placements with respect to the basketball hoop. Thus, it can be difficult to accurately assess the shooter's overall performance and skill level with respect to shot placement since the same shot placement at the hoop may be within the “make zone” when the shot is taken from one angle (or court location) but may be outside of the “make zone” if taken from another angle (or court location).